• ©3 



SOVIETS vs. DEMOCRACY 

BY 

C. M. OBEROUCHEFF 



When and How the Soviets Were Or- 
ganized 

What the Provisional Government Did 
to Introduce Democracy - 

How the Coup D'etat of November, 
1917, Was Accomplished 

Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfill- 
ment 

The Soviets, Their Rule and Constitution 

Who are the "Counter-Revolutionists" 
in Russia? 

The Fundamental Causes of the Failure 
of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 



Price 35 Cents 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

Russian Information Bureau in the U. S. 

WOOLWORTH BUILDING 
NEW YORK CITY 



Soviets vs. Democracy 



C. M. OBEROUCHEFF 



When and How the Soviets Were Or- 
ganized 

What the Provisional Government Did 
to Introduce Democracy 

How the Coup D'etat of November, 
1917, Was Accomplished 

Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfill- 
ment 

The Soviets,Their Rule and Constitution 

Who are the ''Counter-Revolutionists" 
in Russia? 

The Fundamental Causes of the Failure 
of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

Russian Information Bureau in the U. S. 

WOOLWORTH BUILDING 
NEW YORK CITY 






Copyright 1919 
by 
Russian Information Bureau 
New York 



Gift 
Publisher 



NOV 14 168 



h 



Introduction 

The author of this pamphlet, General C. M. Oberoucheff, is 
an old Russian revolutionist, a prominent member of the Party 
of Socialists-Revolutionists. 

In 1889, while a student at the Academy of Artillery, 
C. M. Oberoucheff was arrested for belonging to the Revolu- 
tionary Party "Narodnaya Volia" (The Will of the People) 
and confined to the famous Petropavlovsk Fortress. As a 
result of this arrest, the young military student was 
exiled to Turkestan. During the Revolution of 1905, 
C. M. Oberoucheff had another conflict with the Tzar's 
police, which brought about his retirement from active 
military service. In 1909, C. M. Oberoucheff faced court- 
martial for belonging to the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists. 
In 1913 he was exiled and from then on, up to February, 1917, 
he lived abroad. 

In February, 1917, C. M. Oberoucheff returned to Russia 
desiring to serve the country under war conditions. He was 
arrested in Kiev, but in a few days the March Revolution set 
him free. The Executive Committee of the Council of Social 
Organizations of the city of Kiev elected him Military Com- 
missary of Kiev. Later the Provisional Government, at the 
request of the Kiev Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' 
Delegates and upon the recommendation of General Brusilov, 
appointed him Military Commander of the Kiev District and 
promoted him from the rank of Colonel, which he had held in 
the Russian Army before his exile, to the rank of General. 

At the end of September, 1917, due to a disagreement with 
the Ukrainian organizations with regard to the advisability 
of organizing a national Ukrainian Army, C. M. Oberoucheff 
resigned from his post and went to Scandinavia as the repre- 
sentative of the All-Russian Council of Peasants' Delegates 
to the International Conference dealing with the question of 
exchanging war prisoners. From Scandinavia, C. M. Oberou- 
cheff came to the United States. 



As an old democrat, who has devoted his entire life to the 
service of the people, C M. Oberoucheff discusses with 
authority the problem: "What are the Soviets?" And together 
with all the prominent Russian democrats, C. M. Oberoucheff 
answers that the so-called Soviet form of government is a new 
form of autocracy, the cruel rule of an insignificant minority 
over the majority. We are certain that the American readers 
will find General Oberoucheff's illuminating pamphlet of great 
interest. 

A. J. SACK 

Director of the Russian Information 
Bureau in the U. S. 



When and How the Soviets 
Were Organized 

THE transition of power from the old regime in Petro- 
grad to the Provisional Government was not accompan- 
ied by any violent eruption. The change of authority was 
accomplished quite peacefully, and life ran its normal course, 
save for the street manifestations and the universal display of 
infinite joy over the overthrow of the autocracy which the 
revolutionary democracy of Russia had fought so persistently 
and so long. 

The entire governmental apparatus apparently continued 
to work as before. Yet, there was considerable apprehension 
that enemies of the new order were concealed within this 
administrative system, as the change of Government which 
took place in March was far from acceptable to the higher 
bureaucracy which had controlled Russia heretofore without 
restraint or check. The parliamentary organ of the last decade 
of the Tzar's rule, the lower chamber — the State Duma, had 
been elected on a non-democratic basis, by voters with property 
qualifications, and the upper chamber, the State Council, had 
been in part elected by certain privileged elements of the popu- 
lation and in part appointed by the Tzar from among old retir- 
ing bureaucrats and dignitaries who served largely as a deter- 
rent factor and a drag in the enactment of reforms really useful 
to the people. 

It was only too obvious that these organs of governmental 
legislative power, the State Council and the State Duma, could 
not be very well relied upon during the period of the Revolu- 
tion, when all the props of the old regime were giving way, to 
serve as true exponents of the popular expectations and strivings 
and as fitting collaborators of the new rulers, regardless of the 
fact that the new regime itself had sprung, during the first hours 
of the Revolution, from the bosom of the State Duma. 

The course of events soon dictated the necessity of creating 
in Petrograd a more democratic organ for collaboration with 



When and How the Soviets Were Organized 



the Provisional Government and for rendering it aid in the 
most important and very complex task of the building of new 
Russia. This new organ took shape in the Council (Soviet) of 
Workmen's Deputies of Petrograd, which was organized imme- 
diately, in fact earlier even, in order of time, than the complete 
formation of the Provisional Government itself. The members 
of this Council of Deputies were representatives of workshops 
and factories in Petrograd and vicinity elected at casual meet- 
ings, and also representatives of the revolutionary democracy, 
the most prominent and best-known revolutionists who hap- 
pened to be at that time in Petrograd. The Petrograd Council 
of Workmen's Deputies had among its presidium the members 
of the State Duma, Tscheidze and Kerensky. Kerensky 
entered the Provisional Government from this Soviet. Later 
he reported about his step to the Soviet and received its 
approval. 

These were the circumstances that attended the birth of 
the Soviet in Petrograd in the early days of the March Revolu- 
tion. In the provinces the Soviets of Workmen's Deputies were 
formed almost as soon. The fact is that when the news of the 
change was received, the governmental authorities in the prov- 
inces, the Governors and the smaller administrators, not being 
able to judge how stable the new Government was going to be, 
were utterly confused and did not know how to act. The local 
organs of self-government, the Municipal Councils and the 
Zemstvo institutions which were functioning during the 
Tzarist regime, were far from democratic bodies. These 
Municipal Councils and Zemstvos were chosen by qualified 
suffrage and were composed of houseowners and the bour- 
geoisie in the cities, and large property owners, landlords and 
manufacturers in the country Zemstvos. The workmen were 
not represented at all in the Municipal Councils, and the 
peasants were only represented in the Zemstvos in a limited 
way. Quite naturally, these institutions could not command 
the confidence' of the great masses of the people. 

The confusion among the old Government authorities, on 
the one hand, and tlie lack of confidence in the organs of self- 

rnment. on the other, forced the population, in 'ilv 



When and How the Soviets Were Organized 



days of the Revolution, to seek for a form of local government 
which would provide a maximum of democracy and retain the 
confidence of the people. In response to this desire, Soviets 
of Workmen's Deputies began to form in the provinces — of 
course, not on the basis of universal, direct, secret and equal 
voting, but through open and spontaneous meetings at workshops 
and factories, with the participation of invited political and revo- 
lutionary leaders of all shades of opinion. 

Along with these workmen's organizations there came into 
being during those early days, Councils of Soldiers' Deputies, 
rather unconventional political organs, as the army is generally 
supposed to be outside of politics. But owing to the fact that 
the Revolution had occurred at a time when a considerable part 
of the male population of the country was under arms, and like- 
wise to the complete and violent overturn of all former precepts 
and conventions by the Revolution, the standards of the past 
could not serve as a proper gauge for the valuation of all the 
events of those days. 

However, Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies were organized 
everywhere. In some places these deputies were elected at pro- 
miscuous street meetings of separate soldiers' groups ; in other, 
as among the troops of the Kiev district, they were elected at 
meetings of soldiers and officers of regular army detachments, 
in accordance with rules issued by the army commander of the 
district in the first days of the Revolution. In most places these 
Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies were amalgamated with the Work- 
men's Soviets and formed, as in Petrograd and other cities, 
Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies. In other places, 
as in Kiev, the Soldiers' Councils were apart from the Work- 
ers' Soviets, though they worked jointly and in harmony. 

Some military commanders made an attempt to bring the 
Soldiers' Councils into defined, legalized channels and to meth- 
odize the election of the Soviet representatives by specific regu- 
lations. Such were the orders of General Brusilov, Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Southwesern Front; of General Alex- 
eiev, the Supreme Commander of all the armed forces, and 
A. I. Gutchkov, the Minister of War. But these attempts 



$ When and How the Soviets Were Organized 

failed, first, because these orders lacked uniformity and 
served therefore to create confusion, and, principally, because 
there was no possibility of shaping events in a legal fashion 
during the first period of the Revolution. 

Among the local Workmen's and Soldiers' Soviets, the one 
in Petrograd occupied a distinctly individual position. This 
Soviet, aside from regulating and steering the tendencies of the 
political and economic life in Petrograd and vicinity, assumed 
other general functions, namely, that of a consultative organ 
cooperating with the Provisional Government. This somewhat 
unusual position of the Petrograd Soviet, — in view of the fact 
that it was a local organization and could not reflect the wants 
and aspirations of the entire revolutionary democracy of all 
Russia, — began to appear anomalous, and, indeed, when the 
organization of local Soviets all over the country was accom- 
plished, there appeared an insistent demand for the calling of a 
congress of representatives of Soviets from all over Russia for 
the purpose of creating a central organ. 

In March, 1917, the first Congress of Soviets convened in 
Petrograd, at which, after long and heated debates, the Central 
Executive Committee of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Soviets 
was formed. The function of a central organ heretofore assumed 
by the Petrograd Soviet, ostensibly came to an end, and was 
transferred to this Central Executive Committee. But the 
Petrograd Soviet, as we shall see later, was not always satisfied 
with the modest role of a local Soviet, limited to local affairs. 
It retained the ambition to play the directing part not only in 
local but also in general national afTairs, in direct competition 
with the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the 
Soviets. Somewhat later, but also in the course of extempo- 
raneous revolutionary activity, there were formed, first, local, 
and later, territorial Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. A congress 
of delegates subsequently elected a Central Executive Committee 
of these Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, with headquarters in 
Petrograd, which functioned independently though in steady 
contact with the Central Executive Committee of the Workmen's 
and Soldiers' Soviets. This completed the construction of the 



When and How the Soviets Were Organized 



Soviet edifice and crowned it with a superstructure of two central 
executive bodies. 

The elections to these Councils were not definitely regu- 
lated and their representation could not be, therefore, termed 
truly democratic, nor did they reflect the will of the Russian 
people in their entirety. They were, nevertheless, of a more 
democratic construction than the elective organs that new 
Russia had inherited from the old regime. 

The circumstance that these first Soviets, though not in a 
perfect way, were elected during a period of a general and 
unusual elation of spirits and jubilation, when the customary 
Russian inter-party squabbles and fights had ceased for a w r hile, 
had its influence upon the character of these Soviets, and these 
first bodies w r ere, in the majority of cases, non-party, and I may 
even say, non-class organs. I make this last assertion because 
both in the Workmen's and Peasants' Soviets there were present, 
aside from workmen and peasants, also delegates from various 
party organizations, who came largely from the ranks of the 
non-class intellectuals, the men and women who had struggled 
so fervently with the Tzar's Government for the freedom of 
the people and who had earned and held the confidence of the 
people. The inclusion of representatives from the Army, i. e., 
the Soldiers' Deputies, also had the significance of giving to these 
Soviets less of a class character. The soldiers belonged to all 
classes. 

These organizations were thus performing their functions 
in a more or less satisfactory degree, occasionally assisting the 
Provisional Government in realizing its program of building up 
a new order in Russia. True, our ingrained distrust for any 
form of authority, the result of centuries of Tzarist oppression, 
had the effect upon these Soviets that they ultimately became 
more and more diverted from the path of collaboration with the 
Provisional Government and endeavored to assume control and 
to block its work instead of rendering it aid. But it is quite defi- 
nite that in their earlier stages the Soviets were a help and 
support to the first Government of the Revolution. 



What the Provisional Government 
Did to Introduce Democracy 



T 



HE Provisional Government, after it had assumed 
power, did not decide to immediately introduce cardinal 
changes and reforms in Russian life. 

This policy of the Government was not prompted by the 
presumption that these reforms were not imperative or desir- 
able, or by the thought that it was advisable to leave things 
status quo, but was adopted solely because most of its members 
deemed it vital to leave the solution of these complex problems to 
the people themselves, through a freely elected Constituent 
Assembly which alone could express and afterwards realize the 
will of the people. Generations of Russian revolutionists had 
fought with the irresponsible rule of the Tzars for the ideal of 
a Constituent Assembly and their bones had whitened the road 
from Autocracy to Popular Government. 

Yet, if the Provisional Government, which found itself at 
the helm of power by a sudden turn of fate, could not decide 
upon the introduction of wide social reform, it must not be 
assumed that it did nothing but await with folded arms the sum- 
moning of the Constituent Assembly. On the other hand, it 
accomplished an enormous amount, and most significant work, 
in spite of all obstacles placed in its way, first, stealthily, but 
later in a more and more vociferous and persistent manner, by 
those who cared more than anything else about the "deepening'' 
of the Revolution, i. e., about destructive instead of constructive 
work. 

To begin with, it must be stated that the Provisional Gov- 
ernment signalled its entrance into power by proclaiming amnesty 
to all political prisoners of the old regime, without exception. 
The gates of the prisons were thrown wide open, and Russia's 
best men and women, who had been held captive for years in 
jails, exiled, or kept at work at hard labor, were freed from 
confinement. Aside from that, the various peoples of Russia 



What the Provisional Government Did to Introduce Democracy 11 

have under centuries of oppression never known the meaning 
of political freedom in the slightest degree. The Provisional 
Government liberated, in the very first days of its rule, the 
thought and speech of man and woman from the shackles that 
bound them during the Tzarist days. This Government estab- 
lished complete freedom of speech, press, assembly and associa- 
tion in as true, full and unabridged a form as was ever realized 
in any land. 

Moreover, the Provisional Government upon many occa- 
sions when practical expediency demanded a partial curtailment 
of these liberties, refused to act drastically. It had faith in the 
educational importance of freedom, and would not recede from 
its position. To-day the Provisional Government is being con- 
demned by many for this policy, and is being accused of weak- 
ness and vacillation. But this is not quite true. The refusal 
to apply punitive measures to those who misused these liber- 
ties to the detriment of others, was not so much a sign of 
weakness, — particularly in these early days, — as it was a 
conscious policy of conservation of freedom, a result of the 
sincere conviction that freedom is the best teacher even 
for such citizens who have yet to learn its usages. . 

Thus among the first gains of the Revolution we must put 
down absolute political and religious liberty, to the achievement 
of which the Provisional Government contributed so much. The 
political education and the instruction of the masses, heretofore 
practically illiterate and removed from every source of knowl- 
edge, was one of the first problems to hold the attention of the 
Provisional Government. As a result followed the extensive 
development of publishing enterprises, a wide organization of 
Sunday instruction courses, and the institution of various agen- 
cies for popular education. 

Our narrative of the activities of the Provisional Govern- 
ment would fall short if we were to state that its care extended 
only to the realization of political liberties. The Government 
undertook important steps in the economic domain as well, even 
though it would not risk introducing social experiments and 
reforms without the sanction of the Constituent Assembly. It 
shortened the workday to eight hours ; it passed a law creating 



12 What the Provisional Government Did to Introduce Democracy 

factory commissions, which, as representative organs of the 
workers of each factory, participated in the administration and 
control of the factory or workshop. The wide development of 
the trade union movement, always oppressed under the Tzars, 
was also due not solely to the initiative of the workers, but to a 
considerable degree to the sympathy and cooperation of the Pro- 
visional Government, particularly of the Ministry of Labor, with 
Socialist Ministers at the head of it. 

The Cooperative Movement, in the form of productive, 
credit and consumers' organizations, conceived as an antidote 
to the oppressive burdens of capitalistic and trading exploita- 
tion, was developed on a wide scale in Russia even under the 
Tzarist regime. In January, 1912, there were in Russia over 
10,000,000 members of cooperatie societies, and, computing at 
the rate of five persons to each family, we may readily see that 
the Cooperative Movement of Russia held in its ranks over 
50,000,000 persons, almost a third of the entire population. In 
spite of this wide development the Tzarist Government had 
placed a number of obstacles in its way. One of the chief hin- 
drances preventing the Russian cooperatives from benefiting 
to a greater degree from their extensive development was the 
very stringent regulations, if not complete prohibition, gov- 
erning the unification of these cooperatives upon a national 
basis. 

To be sure, there were in Russia a few centrally united 
cooperatives. But these embraced only credit and some pro- 
ductive cooperative organizations. The most democratic and 
popular form of the cooperatives, the consumers' societies, 
which affected every member directly as a consumer, had only, 
at the time of the downfall of the old regime, three such national 
unions, in Moscow, Poland and Finland. After the Revolution 
the Provisional Government at once drew attention to the neces- 
sity of removing every obstacle from the path of creating 
national unions in every cooperative field. The rapid develop- 
ment of centralized activity in the Cooperative Movement owes 
its start to the ix>licy of the Provisional Government. 

The Provisional Government took a number of serious steps 
in the direction of alleviating the wants of the peasant masses 



What the Provisional Government Did to Introduce Democracy 13 

and laid the ground for a permanent solution of the land prob- 
lem by the Constituent Assembly. For reasons already men- 
tioned, the Provisional Government would not undertake to 
decide definitely upon far-reaching national economic questions, 
but it organized Land Commissions, under the supervision of the 
Ministry of Agriculture, to set the valuation and to take stock 
of the large estates in Russia in order to facilitate their transfer 
to the people, should the Constituent Assembly decide upon 
such a step ; it put a stop to the buying and selling of lands and 
prohibited all land transactions whatever, pending final deci- 
sion; and through the Ministry of Agriculture it prepared a 
plan for the nationalization of the land to be presented to the 
Constituent Assembly, — all measures animated by a desire to 
meet in the speediest and most practical way the hopes and 
expectations of the Russian peasantry. 

Thus, it can readily be seen that the Provisional Govern- 
ment did not remain at all indifferent to the wants of the work- 
ing masses of Russia. If it did not accomplish more than it did, 
it was primarily due to the fact that it was met at every step 
with the distrust and harassing of those who undertook to 
"deepen the Revolution," and also because it was animated by 
a profound respect for the will of the people, — a will that was 
to be expressed only through the medium of a freely elected 
Constituent Assembly. Having undertaken the task of gov- 
erning Russia during the period of a distressing foreign war, 
when the national economy had been systematically destroyed by 
the autocracy and the protracted hostilities, the Provisional 
Government decided to govern the country on the principles of 
right as opposed to might, and to ameliorate, as far as possible, 
the unbearable economic conditions created by the preceding 
regime. At the same time, it decided not to withdraw Russia 
from the coalition of the Powers that were fighting German 
militarism, in order that young, democratic Russia might be 
enabled to cast her influence on the side of all the oppressed and 
downtrodden. Such were the complex problems facing the Pro- 
visional Government immediately after the trend of historic 
events cast upon it the heavy burden of government. 



14 What the Provisional Government Did to Introduce Democracy 

As we have already said, the principal problem of the Pro- 
visional Government was to bring Russia to the opening of the 
Constituent Assembly. It was imperatively necessary, there- 
fore, to create in the various localities of the country the machin- 
ery that would insure freedom of elections and an honest regis- 
tration of the will of the people. Therefore, with this aim in 
view, and likewise for the purpose of creating genuine demo- 
cratic local organs to supervise the economic conditions of the 
country, the Provisional Government decided to organize the 
Municipal and Zemstvo self-government bodies on the basis of 
universal suffrage. A law to this effect, enacted on May 17, 
1917, provided for local elections by a universal, secret, direct 
and equal vote, with a proviso for minority representation and 
the extension of the vote to women. The existing local bodies, 
the old Municipal Councils and Zemstvos, and the Soviets, 
were charged to elect the new institutions within a period of 
from two to three weeks. 

Of course, the time for these elections was very inadequate. 
In fact, it was hardly long enough to prepare the voters' lists, 
inasmuch as the vote in the cities was extended not only to the 
permanent inhabitants but to transient citizens, including mem- 
bers of the military detachments temporarily stationed in the 
various parts of the country. This called forth a flood of pro- 
testing telegrams to Petrograd, principally from the Soviets of 
Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies. In these telegrams more 
time was demanded for the preparatory work of the elections in 
order to enable the people, in their first electoral campaign, to 
conduct a broad and wide discussion of all vital matters and 
interests involved in the elections. The Provisional Goverment 
complied with the requests and extended the time for elections. 
During the entire summer of 1917 a heated campaign for elec- 
tions to the Municipal and Zemstvo institutions was in progress 
all over Russia. The elections were conducted under the joint 
supervision of all local Soviets, Dumas, political parties and 
trades' organizations, which insured the full freedom and the 
regularity of the balloting. When considered that the enthusi- 
asm among the electors was such that from S0 r ,' to 90% (and 
in places even 100% ) of the population took part in the voting, 



What the Provisional Government Did to Introduce Democracy 15 

it may become clear how truly democratic and popular these 
elections for the local institutions were and how fully they 
reflected the "will of the people in all parts of Russia. 

Towards September, 1917, all these new local institutions 
had been elected throughout Russia. As noted above, the cre- 
ation of these bodies was designed to insure the regularity of 
the coming elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, 
but aside from that, they were equally important as the first 
truly democratic organs of local administration, political and 
economic, elected by the entire people. 

From the hour of their creation all the Soviets that were 
called into being during the early processes of the Revolution, 
to supplant or to aid the old limited-suffrage Dumas and Zemst- 
vos, were to give way to these new full-suffrage local organs and 
to confine themselves to trades-union functions or to work of a 
strictly professional character. 

Such was not the case, however. The Bolsheviki had by 
that time begun the fight for power, and their adopted slogan, 
"All power to the Soviets !" began to be heard with more and 
more frequency. This marked the opening chapter in the 
tragedy of Russia's life, which replaced the beautiful first period 
of the Russian Revolution when not only the dawn of a new life 
was breaking over our Motherland, but the bright sun of true 
freedom was beginning to shed its rays through the fast dis- 
appearing clouds. 



How the Coup D'etat of November, 
1917, Was Accomplished 

WE have already seen that there existed in Petrograd, 
since the very beginning of the Revolution, a local 
Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies and 
also two Central Executive Committees, one of the Workmen's 
and Soldiers' Soviets and one of the Peasants' Soviets. These 
Central Executive Committees, elected by the revolutionary 
democracy of all Russia during the days when party divisions 
were not quite as sharply defined as they were later, were 
more stable and politically ripe in their make-up than the 
local Soviets with their flowing and constantly changing per- 
sonnel. 

Gradually, under the influence of the unrestrained and 
brazen agitation conducted by local and, principally, out-of- 
town Bolsheviki, the Petrograd Soviet began to incline more 
and more to Bolshevism. In September, 1917, just when in all 
the cities and provinces of Russia the new democratic Zemstvos 
and Dumas had been elected and the role of the Soviets was 
practically coming to an end, the shouting of the slogan "All 
power to the Soviets ! Down with the Provisional Government !" 
was becoming more and more loud and persistent. It was then 
that the question of the overthrow of the Provisional Govern- 
ment and the capture of power by the Soviets was raised and 
decided in the affirmative. True, the resolution to this effect 
adopted by the Petrograd Soviet was rejected with a protest by 
the two Central Executive Committees of the Workmen's and 
Soldiers' and of the Peasants' Soviets. In other words, the 
representatives of the revolutionary and socialist democracy of 
all Russia protested against this overthrow of the Government 
planned by the Petrograd Soviet, and this protest was voiced 
principally because this nefarious plan was being hatched just 
at the time when the Provisional Government had made all 
preparations for the elections to the Constituent Assembly and 
had, in fact, set the time for the elections and likewise the date 



How the Coup D'etat of November, vtvg, Was Accomplished 17 

for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly — December 
11, 1917. 

But the coup was nevertheless accomplished by a minority, 
against the definite and clearly expressed will of the majority 
of the people. The leaders of the overturn, however, wanted 
to give it the appearance of a popular revolt and the consumma- 
tion of the will of the masses, in spite of the fact that it was 
carried out by a comparatively small number of people. In 
justice to the Bolsheviki it must be stated that they are past 
masters in the art of staging "popular" revolts, and, true to form, 
they carried out their last plan and struck notes and chords upon 
the mass-sentiment with perfection. They first turned their 
attention to the soldiers, in those days a large part of the popu- 
lation and the mainstay in the defense against Germany. The 
Bolsheviki knew well that great numbers of these soldiers wanted 
to see an end to the War and to return to their homes and fields. 
This sentiment was the result not only of the artful persistent 
agitation conducted by the Bolsheviki at the front and the rear, 
but was likewise due to the general weariness and the disorgan- 
ization of our Army, and its poor supply service, inherited from 
the old regime. The Bolsheviki unhesitatingly took advantage 
of this elemental, demoralized state of mind and told the sol- 
diers : 

"The Provisional Government is deceiving you. It is con- 
tinuing this war not in the interests of the war-worn peoples of 
Russia, but solely for the domestic and foreign capitalists. We 
will conclude an immediate peace and life will be peaceful and 
untroubled." 

"Scatter, comrades, to your homes !" the call sounded to 
the soldiers, accompanied by a sinister nod in the direction of 
the officers, as if to insinuate that they were the only ones in 
the Army who favored the continuation of the war and that, 
in common with the bourgeoisie, they were gaining material 
advantages from it. 

Thus the homeward drift from the front and the rear 
started, and the Army began to melt away. It was not, of 
course, accomplished at one stroke, as there were men in the 



18 How the Coup D'etat of Noi ember, 1917, Was Accomplished 

ranks who could not reconcile their consciences to such a dis- 
honorable ending of the war, and who attempted to convince 
others of the madness and danger involved in this destruction of 
the Russian Army. But the deed was done, and the hearts of 
the masses of the soldiery were for the time swayed by the Bol- 
sheviki to their side. Gradually the Army ceased to exist and 
the systematic killing off of the officers, as the enemies of the 
people, kept pace with it. The Bolsheviki were beginning to 
claim that the Army was with them. 

But no matter how important the Army and its bayonets 
were for the usurpers, they could not limit themselves 
to agitation at the front and the rear. They were com- 
pelled to manifest a show of friendliness to the other strata of 
the population, to those who wore no soldiers'" uniforms and 
carried no rifles, but who, nevertheless, were the majority of 
the population. So they began to cast coveting eyes upon the 
peasantry of Russia. 

The idea that the land must eventually revert to the people 
was, from time immemorial, the fond dream of the Russian 
peasantry, and the revolutionary democracy of Russia was giv- 
ing this problem long and earnest consideration and was endeav- 
oring to solve it in the most equitable manner, in the common 
interest of the entire population. In brief, this problem had 
ripened to the stage of general agreement on the point that the 
land must be transferred to the peasants on the basis that those 
who till it shall own it. The Provisional Government had given 
very serious thought and attention to this problem and had 
prepared, as indicated above, a law-project for the favorable 
solution of it by the Constituent Assembly. 

The Provisional Government would not, however, under- 
take to put the land reform in practice without the sanction of 
the Constituent Assembly. The Bolsheviki took advantage of 
this position and proclaimed the land popular property. As the 
preparation of a plan for the administration of the lands and 
their distribution among the population for rational use was a 
complex task and required a great deal of time, the Bolsheviki 
solved it with remarkable "speed and simplicity." I will refrain 



How the Coup D'etat of November, 1917, Was Accomplished 19 

from a personal characterization of their methods and will con- 
tent myself with the brief summary of their newly-baked apolo- 
gist and erstwhile opponent, Professor Lomonosov. At a meet- 
ing in Madison Square Garden, he thus defined the method the 
Bolsheviki used to solve the land problem: 

"The Bolsheviki came and said : 'Take it all, at once !' " 
The masses of people, who had only recently heard from 
the Provisional Government such words as : "Wait, the Con- 
stituent Assembly will convene and will solve, among other 
vital problems, the land question," concluded that in the Bol- 
sheviki they had found true and warm defenders of their press- 
ing interests, for, did not their declarations meet the burning 
desires of the day and contain the promise of immediate satis- 
faction? Of course, there were among the Russian peasantry 
many who doubted that the complex land problem could be 
solved by the simple method of land-grabbing. Yet, as Professor 
Lomonosov assures us, the peasants went with the Bolsheviki. 
We shall not enter into a discussion of this assertion, but one 
thing is quite certain, and that is that the minds of many 
of the peasants became temporarily inclined toward the men 
who made them these alluring promises. 

But the Bolsheviki, who were preaching the gospel of the 
"dictatorship of the proletariat," i. e., the transfer of all power 
in the land to a comparatively small group of the Russian popu- 
lation, the group that could be justly termed the "proletariat," 
could not very well fail to make special promises and bestow 
special favors upon this group. For these, therefore, for the 
city workers, the Bolsheviki proposed workers' control over the 
factories, which, in the happy expression of Professor Lomon- 
osov, was likewise voiced in the call : "Grab all, at once !" Lenine 
voiced his approval in the order : "Rob the robbers !" 

Thus the soldiers, workmen and peasants were won over 
by the Bolsheviki, — at least, in the sense that they were to a 
certain degree devitalized as an opposing force to the usurpa- 
tion of power by these brand-new benefactors of the people. 
There were still, however, some obstacles to be overcome. There 
were still some elements in Russia to whom the Bolshevist slo- 



20 How the Coup D'etat of November, 1917, Was Accomplished 

gans may have appeared very alluring, yet impossible of realiza- 
tion unless sanctioned by the will of the whole people. 
Generations of Russian revolutionists had dreamt of such a 
manifestation of the will of the people and had founght the 
autocracy in the name of a Constituent Assembly, and in the 
minds and hearts of a great many only such an assembly was 
deemed capable of solving the complex problems of the national 
life. The Provisional Government, in fact, was basing its entire 
existence upon the summoning of a Constituent Assembly, and 
it appeared quite unseemly to oppose a Government that was 
supporting it and go over to the cause of a single group, no 
matter how alluring their promises were. The Bolsheviki un- 
derstood this situation perfectly well when they were prepar- 
ing their campaign against the Provisional Government. They 
did not fail to take advantage of the fact that the Provisional 
Government was compelled, owing to technical reasons, to 
change the date first set for the convocation of the Assembly, 
in September, for a later date. They at once declared : "The 
Provisional Government is hesitating to call the Constituent 
Assembly because it is afraid of the will of the people. We, on 
the other hand, are striving to call together the Constituent 
Assembly at once." 

In this manner a great many of those who justly saw in the 
Constituent Assembly the panacea for most of the ills afflicting 
the people of Russia, began to trust them and were won over 
by these generous dispensers of promises. Still, there were others 
in Russia who stood for the defense of their native land against 
the aggressive invasion of the Germans, and their number was 
large, indeed. So the Bolsheviki did not forget these either, 
once they had made their decision to draw to themselves, even 
though for a time, the sympathies of the masses and to dem- 
onstrate that the entire people was with them. They utilized 
the discussion, in October, of the plan suggested by the Pro- 
visional Government to transfer the Capital from Petrograd to 
Moscow, and they vociferously and unequivocally declared: 

"The Provisional Government is taking steps to run away 
to Moscow. They want to surrender Petrograd to the Ger- 



How the Coup D'etat of November, 1917, Was Accomplished 21 

mans. We will not give up Petrograd to the Germans under 
any condition. We will defend it to the last drop of blood, and 
we call upon you to defend it !" Thus were attracted to them 
even those whom they had only recently mockingly called "patri- 
ots," and the minds of those who earnestly sought a way out of 
the perilous situation at the front were deeply confused by these 
pronouncements of the power-hungry Bolsheviki. 

This shower of promises scattered promiscuously in all 
directions and calculated to reach all the elements of the popula- 
tion succeeded in attracting to them the great masses of the 
people, which, even though not yet ready to take up a fight 
for the new authorities, were becoming indifferent to the old 
rule, the Provisional Government created by the March Revo- 
lution, and this, in turn, insured the ostensible recognition of the 
new rule by the rank and file of the people of Russia. 



Bolshevist Promises and Their 
Fulfillment 

I HAVE related above by what promises the Bolsheviki 
succeeded in inclining to their side, at least temporarily, 
before the coup d'etat was accomplished, the sympathies 
of the various elements of Russia's population. We shall now 
see how the Bolsheviki kept their promises. 

The first promise was to conclude peace, i. e., to make it 
possible for all the soldiers to return to their homes and to 
emerge from the reign of blood to a reign of tranquillity and 
normal working life. To begin with, the coveted peace did not 
materialize, for the War went on and the Germans were gradu- 
ally penetrating deeper and deeper into Russia, maltreating the 
people and shedding the blood of the soldiers and inhabitants. 
But this was not all. Having discovered the danger to the 
national life of Russia threatened by the rule of the Bolsheviki, 
several parts of Russia, not yet fully conquered by the allure- 
ments of Bolshevism, decided to separate themselves temporarily 
from those sections which were completely under the yoke of 
the latter. Thereupon, the Bolsheviki, the same "friends" who 
had so loudly proclaimed the captivating slogans of freedom 
and national self-determination, decided as soon as they observed 
that this self-determination was not working out quite in accord 
with their precepts, to oppose the will of these peoples and 
declared war upon them. 

All during the period that preceded the coup the Bolshe- 
viki had persistently preached to the soldiers that the Russian 
workmen and peasant must not shoot or stab the German soldiers- 
proletarians. After they had gained power, however, they led 
these same soldiers, those who did not have time to run away, 
(or those who had no place to go to, as their homes were occu- 
pied by the invading Germans'), to shoot and bayonet the work- 
men and the peasants of the Ukraine, Don, Kuban and other 
regions, anrl instead of the Russian-German front there have 



Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfillment 23 

sprung up all over Russia a number of fighting lines where blood 
runs in rivers and where in a fraticidal war the peoples of Russia 
are exterminating each other, in order to facilitate for the Ger- 
mans their ultimate aim — the conquest of the entire world. 

It is true that this war on the Ukraine, Don, Kuban, Cau- 
casus and Siberian fronts the Bolsheviki choose to term a civil 
war. Mr. Lenine, at the third Soviet Congress, quite definitely 
stated that only the Bolsheviki have dared loudly and distinctly 
to advance the plan of a civil war and to execute it. We shall 
not quibble about words. Let them call this blood-shedding of 
the people "civil war." Though w'e know that this war on all 
the new fronts is conducted by the Bolsheviki for the conquest 
of various provinces and nationalities of Russia, we are 
not inclined to quarrel about terms. The essential fact, 
however, remains that the people's blood is being poured out with 
the same intensity as on the old Russian-German front, and the 
masses are still further away to-day from peaceful, productive 
labor and the upbuilding of a new life than what they were 
before the Bolsheviki had made their promises to them. 

True, the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty was signed on behalf 
of Russia by some persons who pretended to represent Russia, 
but this treaty was never recognized by the nation, and the 
country, though resisting only passively, continued to be 
on a war footing with the Central Powers. Instead of forcing 
Germany, by the combined efforts of all the Allies, to recede 
from her annexationist plans, the Bolsheviki, by their promises 
of peace and the demoralization of the front, weakened the 
Allies, and in place of peace gave the peoples of Russia and 
all others a protracted and bloody war. 

This is how the peace promise was fulfilled. 

Next came the promise of land. The land problem was 
solved by the Bolsheviki, as stated already, in the simplest 
manner. In accordance with their directions, "Grab all, at 
once !" the peasant masses attacked the landowners' holdings, 
live stock and personal property and divided it among them- 
selves. "Who got the lion's share in this free-for-all affair? 



24 Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfillment 

Well, of course, those who commanded more force at the 
outset. They would drive up to the estates in wagons, 
would confiscate the foodstuffs, household and other 
goods and take it away with them, and, quite natu- 
rally whoever had more horses and wagons to load 
up would get away with more things. The poor, who had 
no horses or wagons, could only take along as much as they 
could carry in their bare hands. As for the soil, the division 
was also conducted on the same lines : the more powerful among 
the peasants would receive a more generous slice. Aside from 
this, large masses of peasant-folk were not on the spot at the 
time of the division, as they were still on the way from the front 
and could not take part in it. The partly neglected and 
grabbed-up land, therefore, very seldom fell into the hands of 
those peasants who needed it most. 

As a result of it, we observe that in such a fertile region — 
the granary of Russia — as the Volga Provinces, half of the 
arable lands remained uncultivated in the summer of 1918, for 
the sole reason that the better developed homesteads were 
destroyed, the harvesting implements partly ruined and partly 
stolen, and frequently because the casual "owner" of the con- 
fiscated land was not altogether certain that under the unstable 
conditions of the country, he, the tiller of the soil, would be the 
one to gather in the crop. Aside from that, the abstention from 
cultivation was influenced considerably by the fact that the very 
method of land acquisition based upon the principle of "grab 
all, at once," did not quite appeal to all the inhabitants of the 
Russian village as the most rational and legitimate method. In 
consequence, engrossed in meditation and far from certain that 
the change that took place will rebound to the best interests of 
the people, our people are still facing the land question. 

Without a well thought-out and planned program for the 
utilization and distribution of lands, such a solution of the land 
problem as was fostered by the new rulers of Russia could not, 
of course, satisfy the masses of the people. True, Lenine him- 
self is effervescing with joy at the "creative" work of the pres- 
ent-day village. At the Soviet Congress he said, brimful with 
happiness : "To those who claim that we have accomplished 



Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfillment 25 

nothing, that we spend our time in inactivity, that the reign of 
the Soviet rule is fruitless, we only want to say: Look at the 
very depths of the toiling people, into the core of the dense 
masses ! There you can see a never-ceasing creative organizing 
activity; there springs forth a new life enlightened by the 
revolution.' In the villages the peasants are taking the lands, 
the workers are appropriating the factories and all manner of 
organizations are appearing everywhere !" 

Such is this "construction" of a new life! Unfortunately, 
these "takings" and "appropriations" are a long way from con- 
structive work, and the people are already beginning to learn 
that they have been led into the wrong course, a course that does 
not add to the common weal and happiness. Through their 
"solution" of the land problem the Bolsheviki have led the people 
into a stupefying mess from which the peasants can extricate 
themselves only with extreme difficulty and after a terrible inter- 
necine struggle, instead of the Socialist millennium promised them. 

What about the "workmen's control" which attracted to the 
Bolsheviki the support of so many workers? 

Every Socialist recognizes the necessity of control of indus- 
try, the necessity of controlling it to the extent that -the owners 
of capital are deprived of the possibility and right to receive 
super-profits and also for the sake of insuring industry against 
crises through the regulation of production. Such a control, how- 
ever, must be the task of the governmental authority, of the 
center of power, where all information about the conditions of 
industry is concentrated and where the national demands which 
industry is called upon to supply may be ascertained. This con- 
trol is, therefore, a complex governmental apparatus by neces- 
sity, yet the Bolsheviki thought it feasible to substitute for it the 
simple "method" of turning over to the control of the workers 
of each factory its technical and administrative departments 
without the least connection with the general industry of the 
country, except by the way of simultaneous incitement of the 
workmen against the employers and the engineers as "bour- 
geoisie." 

Of course, such a "control," exercised in the great majority 
of cases by persons who had not in the slightest degree the tech- 



26 Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfillment 

nical or administrative knowledge required to run the given fac- 
tory or industry, resulted in the breakdown of the factories and 
workshops, the cessation of work, and unemployment. The con- 
sumers were in turn deprived of all the articles and products 
upon which they depended for their maintenance. As a result, 
the country, which even in ordinary times could not supply 
through its own industrial resources sufficient work for the 
masses of its workmen, remained only with a control over an 
industry which had practically ceased to exist These masses of 
workmen who had responded so warmly to the clarion call of 
the Bolsheviki, 'Take all, at once!" were left without' work. 
Some of them chose to sign up as "Bolsheviki," to enter the 
ranks of the "Red Guard" for comfortable daily pay and food, 
but the majority of the workmen, numbering many tens of thou- 
sands, who were not quite ready to sell their blood for the doubt- 
ful cause of the red gendarmerie, have been left on the brink of 
starvation. 

Thus were fulfilled the Bolsheviki's promises to the workers. 

Let us see now what the Bolsheviki did to hasten the calling 
of the Constituent Assembly, which, according to their state- 
ments, the Provisional Government was "sabotaging," i. e., post- 
poning indefinitely, fearing the manifestation of the popular 
wrath. 

To begin with, such a statement sounds strange and quite 
unexpected from such a source, assuming even that it is made 
by some honest Bolsheviki, and such, though very few and far 
between, doubtless exist. First, the Provisional Government only 
once postponed the convocation of the Assembly, and that only 
because it was absolutely necessary to prepare the election ma- 
chinery for the Constituent Assembly and to provide it with the 
maximum of guarantees of fairness and regularity. For that 
purpose it was necessary to create city and Zemstvo institutions 
based upon universal suffrage. Again, this agitation was started 
at the time when the law pertaining to the elections of the Assem- 
bly was already adopted by the Provisional Government and 
even the election days were set, November 12 (25). and the 
opening time fixed for November 28 (December 11), 1917. 
Moreover, the electoral campaign had already begun. 



Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfillment 27 

We know already how the "fight" of the Bolsheviki for the 
Constituent Assembly ended. First of all, it degenerated into 
a fight against the Constituent Assembly, an opposition which the 
people of Russia, though late, finally succeeded in overcoming. 
Instead of December 11, 1917, the Constituent Assembly met on 
January 18, 1918. But it was dispersed by Bolshevist bayonets 
on the very day it assembled, as it did not show any willingness 
to dance to the fiddling of the Bolsheviki and dared to attempt 
to express the true will of the people. Similar treatment was 
accorded by the Bolsheviki and their hirelings, the Red Guards, 
to the peaceful manifestants who paraded the streets of Petro- 
grad in honor of the Constituent Assembly. They were met by 
rifle fire and machine guns, and the red banners of the Revolution 
were wrested from their hands and burned on the streets, a 
method recalling the blue-coated gendarmes of the Department 
of Police under the regime of the Tzars. 

The members of the Constituent Assembly were subjected 
to all sorts of violence, and many of these men, whose only mis- 
fortune was that they enjoyed the trust of the people, were killed 
in cold blood. The very idea of the Constituent Assembly, for 
which generations of Russian revolutionists fought and died, was 
discarded, and universal, direct, secret and equal suffrage, with 
guarantees of minority representation, was labeled a "bourgeois 
relic." 

In this manner have the Bolsheviki, who promised the 
"speediest" summoning of the Constituent Assembly, disposed of 
the will of the people. 

And, lastly, we may briefly refer to another one of their 
avowals, the defense of Petrograd. Even the Bolsheviki appar- 
ently understood that they had no means to defend Petrograd 
with, and that the task would by far exceed their strength. The 
four pieces of cannon left in Petrograd after troops and artillery 
were dispatched to Finland to incite and sustain a rebellion in 
that land, were quite inadequate for any defense, and Petrograd 
was left helpless under the threat of capture by the Germans. 
Regardless of the fact that this situation did not contain an 
immediate danger for them and their camp followers, the Bol- 
sheviki, nevertheless, thought it best for their safety to fold up 



28 Bolshevist Promises and Their Fulfillmnet 

their tents and move to Moscow, taking along with them the 
Lettish regiments who had left their own country to its fate and 
gone to serve new masters. 

Thus have the Bolsheviki kept faith with the masses of 
Russia, thus have they kept all the generous promises they made 
before their November attack — promises which lured to their 
camp many Russians who expected a hasty, precipitous solution 
of all ills. To-day the Russian people stand before a broken, 
empty trough, deceived by those who shouted themselves hoarse 
about their love for the people and their eagerness to defend all 
the down-trodden and oppressed. 

The eyes of the people are again beginning to see things 
aright. If it was destined that the peoples of Russia should live 
through the horror of the rule of the present-day Bolsheviki, 
we may hope that this lesson will not have been in vain, and 
that the liberated nationalities of Russia will be more discrimi- 
nating in the future in the choice of their friends, whom they will 
weigh in the balance not in accordance with their professions, but 
by their acts. 



The Soviets, Their Rule and 
Constitution 



IMMEDIATELY upon their capture of power in Petro- 
grad, the Bolsheviki, after arresting the members of the 
Provisional Government, dispersed the Petrograd Munici- 
pal Duma, shortly before elected by universal suf- 
frage and containing a majority of Socialists. I em- 
phasize this fact because the Bolsheviki are posing 
as Socialists, and should have been eager, if that were true, to 
use the services of a Socialist Duma elected by the universal vote 
of the population. This, however, was not done accidentally, but 
in a systematic, premeditated way. Later, in Moscow and in 
other cities that fell into the hands of the Bolsheviki, they first 
of all drove out the Municipal Dumas and destroyed all 
administrative institutions. The Central Executive Commit- 
tees of the Workmen's and Soldiers' and of the Peasants' 
Soviets, who had spoken out against the plans of the Petro- 
grad Soviet in November, were also dispersed by bayonets 
and driven underground, from where they continued to fight 
for the liberties of the people.* 

This, however, did not satisfy the Bolsheviki. Once in the 
seat of power, assumed under the banner of the "deepening and 
the development of the Revolution," and pledged to the intro- 
duction of Socialism — an order of society committed to the 
equality of all citizens and inviolability of person — the Bolsheviki 
began to execute a plan of handpicking the membership of the 
Soviets, at first carefully, one by one, and later in groups, driv- 
ing out of the Soviets all elements of opposition. In this man- 



*See the ■interesting' report about the stubborn fight waged by the 
Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, written by the Chairman 
of this Committee, I. Rakitnikova, appearing in the supplement of John 
Spa.rgo's book on "Bolshevism, " pages 331-334, "How the Russian Peasants 
Fought for a Constituent Assembly." 



30 The Soviets, Their Rule and Constitution 

ner were the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Social-Democrats 
Menshiviki eliminated from the Petrograd, Moscow and other 
Soviets, and later from the Central Executive Committees. The 
Soviets were gradually turned into Bolshevist tools and all oppo- 
sition was squelched under threat of application of physical force. 
In cases where workmen from factories and workshops elected 
"undesirable" delegates, from the Bolshevist pom! of view, such 
elections were simply nullified and the delegates not allowed to 
take their seats. 

Even the non-party Soviets of the first period were far less 
democratic and a less representative choice of the population than 
the newly elected Zemstvos and Municipal Councils, and the 
Soviets were in duty bound to give way to these later bodies, 
as newer and more democratic organizations. The Soviets, how- 
ever, controlled by the Bolsheviki, became mere branches of their 
party organization and, of course, represented only a small frac- 
tion of the population, namely, the Bolsheviki, and some shady 
elements who joined them. So, instead of being ruled by pop- 
ular, representative government, the country fell under the dom- 
ination of an oligarchy of the worst type. To be sure, the Bol- 
sheviki lay no claim to expressing the will of the majority of 
the people, as they regard the universal, direct, equal and secret 
ballot as a "bourgeois relic" which does not interest them. 

For some considerable time the Soviets were functioning 
without a constitution, and the members gave expression to their 
desires by a simple showing of hands at open meetings dominated 
by terror and threats of retribution in case undesirable persons 
were elected. Only after more than six months had passed, 
namely on July 10, 1918, did the Fifth Congress of the Soviets 
adopt a "Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet 
Republic" in which the ramifications of the Soviet rule were laid 
down. In view of the importance of this document it may be 
well to analyze it in detail. 

We shall begin with an outline and description of the vot- 
ing rights of the citizens of Soviet Russia. Needless to say that 
universal suffrage, as a "bourgeois prejudice," is rejected, and in 
its place a special form of voting is adopted which grants the 
right of participation in the elections of the governing organs of 



The Soviets, Their Rule and Constitution 31 

the State only to certain categories. All others are completely 
deprived of the vote and the right of being elected. 

Here is the full text of the law : 

"No. 64. The. right to elect and to be elected to the Soviets 
may be exercised by the following citizens of either sex of the 
Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic who have reached, 
on the day of the balloting, eighteen years of age, irrespective 
of religion, nationality, habitation, etc. 

"a. All who earn their livelihood through productive and 
socially useful labor and also persons engaged at household work, 
such as : workmen and employees of all classes and categories; 
persons employed in industry, trade, agricultural economy, 
etc. ; peasants, Cossack land-tillers, and all those who are not 
using hired labor for the sake of making profit. 

"b. Soldiers of the Soviet army and navy. 

"c. Citizens who are included in the classes enumerated in 
paragraphs (a) and (b) of this article, but who have lost, through 
some cause, capacity for work." 

This is the Soviet law which defines the suffrage rights of the 
citizens. As you may observe, the voting age is not very high, 
but that, apparently, was not sufficient for the framers of this 
election law, for in the first note to this article the Bolshevist 
legislators added the following: "Local Soviets have the right, 
with the affirmation of the Central authorities, to lower the vot- 
ing age fixed in this article." In quest of favorable results the 
Bolsheviki, apparently, are placing high hopes even on children. 
Therefore, if in the opinion of the local Soviet the adult popula- 
tion of a given locality is not quite favorably inclined to the 
Bolsheviki and may return delegates of other political beliefs, 
the local Soviet has only to lower the voting age (the limit of such 
age is not indicated in the law) and secure the election of its 
adherents by the votes of children, or perhaps return children 
as delegates to these Soviets — admittedly, quite a novelty in elec- 
toral practice. Another novel point is the fact that in the Russian 
Soviet Federative Republic electoral rights are extended to "for- 
eigners residing in Russian territory, occupying themselves with 
labor and belonging to the working class or to the peasantry 



Th ~ Their Rule and Constitution 

which does not exploit hired labor Article 20 and note 2 to 

-icle 6^ 

We shall now turn our attention to the ar 
Electoral L the persons who are deprived of 

electoral r 

ere can be no objection to thr "Dm voting of 

the feeble-minded or insane I as per enal 

and e 65 \\ E and G e other 

^graphs in th the document, however, that re- 

~e a more earnest consideration. "Emp. and agen: 

the old police or the special corps of gendarmes and the J 
: branches'" are deprived from the right of 

to provoke some smiling from per- 
sons know. It is an open secret that in the ranks of the 
Bol- : the Soviet government and 
even at the very top of the 5 lie, there are a considerable 
number of these "men with a pa- om the Soviet govern- 
ment is making use of in its inte What about such gen- 
tlemen, for instance, are they to be deprived On 
the one hand ndarrr ) be excluded from 
.nd on the other, as emplc 
3, doing "socic. ork. they are entitled to vote. 
Quite a knc uation, indeed. 

inks and spiritual servants of churches and re. g de- 

nomination for some inexplicable i put outside the 

pale of voters. Xext come the following categor: Persons 

who resort to hired labor for gainful purpose rt icle 65, Para- 

graph A » : **F who live on unearned incomes, such as in- 

n capital, inc -om enten Article 

Paragraph E :e tra ' trade and commercial 

mid ~icle 65, Paragraph B ). To begin with, in 

of the fact that the so-called Soviet Republ ieclared 

: Republic nable to suppose that the - 

:ence of such categc such a commun -:ent 

and intolerable. Wh i these people, people who are using 

hired labor for profit, people who live by coupon-cutting, com- 
mercial agents of all sorts, find place in a Socialist Republic? 
There is no room for them in such a commonwealth and they 



The Soviets, Their Rule and Constitution 33 

need not be mentioned at all. If, however, our woebegone "so- 
cialists" cannot manage the job they claim to have undertaken, 
and still find it possible to allow the hiring of labor for profit, 
private commerce and trading brokerage, it stands to reason that 
the activity of these categories is, at this transitory period, socially 
useful and that even the Soviet rule cannot get along without it. 
And if such is the case — we take it that the Soviet rulers would 
not have tolerated it if it were otherwise — it is apparent that it 
is absolutely unjust to deprive them of electoral rights, of the right 
to participate in the moulding of the common life. The only 
explanation that can be offered for this exclusion is the extreme 
cowardice of the Soviet rule, which is afraid lest persons op- 
posed to their theories may find their way into influential positions, 
and, also, that unrelenting vengefulness and hatred which run 
like a red thread through all the experimental "creativeness" of 
the Bolsheviki. 

Let us pass over to the construction of the Soviet rule, as 
per the "constitution." 

At the head of all the representative institutions of the Soviet 
rule is placed the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workmen's, 
Peasants', Cossacks' and Red Army Deputies. This Congress 
is composed of "representatives of city Soviets on the basis of 
one deputy for every 25,000 voters, and representatives of gu- 
bernia (Province) Soviets on the basis of one deputy for every 
125,000 inhabitants" (Article 25). It seems rather strange, un- 
less it is a misprint, that deputies from cities are apportioned 
on the basis of the voters of a given section, and the gubernia 
deputies, i. e., in fact the villages, are allotted on the basis of the 
total number of inhabitants. It is possible, therefore, to state the 
difference of representation between the city and the village in 
the following manner: Taking the ordinary family to be of five 
persons, we find that one deputy is allotted for every 25.000 
families. Figuring, again, that the average family has three 
members of voting age — father, mother and one child (the 
voting age being 18 years or less) — we find that the representa- 
tion of the peasant population will be one deputy to each 75,000 
voters, i. e., the village representation in the All-Russian Con- 
gress will be one-third that of the city. This proportion will 



34 The Soviets, Their Rule and Constitution 

appear still more unfavorable for the village population upon 
further consideration. 

The deputies from the city Soviets to the All-Russian Con- 
gress are elected directly and straight from the city Soviets, which 
represent the populations of the cities. The deputies of the coun- 
try or village populations are not selected directly by the Soviets 
of the respective settlements, but by the Gubernia Congress, 
i. e., through a three-grade system. This will not appear sig- 
nificant until we examine the construction of the Gubernia 
Soviet Congress as outlined in the Constitution. Article 53, 
paragraph B, states as follows: "The Gubernia (circuit) 
Congresses of Soviets are composed of representatives of 
city Soviets and volost (village district) Congresses on the 
basis of one deputy for every 10,000 of population and from 
the cities at the rate of one deputy for every 2,000 voters, but 
the number shall not exceed 300 for the entire Gubernia 
(circuit)." We thus see that in these Gubernia Con- 
gresses, which are to elect the deputies of the village popula- 
tion to the All-Russian Congress, there are participating not only 
the local deputies of the village population, but deputies from the 
cities as well, and in a double proportion at that, i. e., deputies 
from the city Soviets and deputies elected directly by the city 
voters. It stands to reason that when these Gubernia Congresses 
elect deputies to the All-Russian Congress, they will elect repre- 
sentatives not only from the villages and settlements, but also 
men from the cities, which will still further reduce the proportion 
of the peasantry's representation in the central organ of the 
Soviets which decides the fate of all Russia. 

We thus see that the electoral law is so framed as to insure 
for the city population a preponderant representation in compari- 
son with the village population. It was done, obviously, for party 
purposes, as the village is less inclined to Bolshevism than the 
population of the cities, and it was deemed expedient to give 
the peasantry, which makes up 80 per cent of the population of 
Russia, a weaker representation than the city workmen. 

The constitution of Soviet Russia contains no directions as 
to the technical methods for the purpose of safeguarding the 
regularity of elections and freedom of expression by the 



The Soviets, Their Rule and Constitution 35 

voters. Only the following few words cover this entire matter: 
"Elections are to be conducted in accordance with established 
customs, upon days designated by local Soviets" (Article No. 66). 

And that is all. Whether these customs are good or bad, 
whether they will guarantee the electors freedom of voting or 
not, or whether these elections may be substituted by some neatly 
masked appointments by the administrative authorities (such 
"customs" were known to have happened in the old Tzarist days 
of ill-repute), nothing is indicated in the law, and, consequently, 
a wide opportunity and latitude is hereby presented for various 
manifestations in the voting and the carrying out of the will of 
the various commissaries and administrators instead of the will 
of the people. In fact, the elections are conducted everywhere 
at open meetings by a simple showing of hands. 

Aside from unjust and faulty representation, the organization 
of the Soviets and the Executive Committees is entirely too cum- 
bersome, and keeps thousands of people out of productive em- 
ployment and constantly on the go from congress to congress 
and from meeting to meeting. When we consider that the 
"term of a Soviet deputy's tenure of authority is only three 
months" we get a complete picture of the constant process 
of elections and re-elections of deputies. Of course, all this 
hampers materially the productivity of these Soviets. 

Here are the rungs in the Soviet ladder of elections : 

Town and Village Soviets 

Village district (volost) Soviets and their Executive Com- 
mittees 

County (ooyezd) Soviets and their Executive Committees 

Provincial (gubernia) Soviets and their Executive Com- 
mittees 

Territorial Soviets and their Executive Committees 
The All-Russian Congress and its Executive Committee. 
It will be noted that only the village and the city Soviets 
are elected directly. All the others are elected through a mixed 
process, and some receive their mandate through a five-grade 
sifting. 



36 The Soiets, Their Rule and Constitution 

We have noted above that the main Soviet Congress styles 
itself the "All-Russian Congress of Workmen's, Peasants', 
Cossacks' and Red Army Deputies," but, in spite of all investiga- 
tion, we have not found any indication of the manner of election 
of deputies from the army to the Soviets, either in the Soviet 
Constitution or in the decrees about the Red Army at our dis- 
posal. It is difficult, therefore, for us to state the proportion 
of the Red Army deputies in the All-Russian Congress. But, 
judging by the Soviet leaders' clever manipulations in providing 
for the preponderant numerical advantage of the city workers 
over the peasants in the Ail-Russian Congress, we may rest 
assured that they have not failed to make the proper provisions 
for the Red Army, the real mainstay of the so-called Soviet rule. 

We see, therefore, that the elections to the Soviet are neither 
universal, equal, secret nor direct. From this cursory analysis 
of the construction of the Soviets we may conclude that even 
without any misuse of authority or invasion of rights, the repre- 
sentative organs of the Soviets are not the expression of the 
popular will, but the representation of certain privileged classes, 
the representation of a small minority to the detriment of the 
overwhelming majority. And as in present-day Soviet Russia 
the central authorities have adequate possibilities to control the 
local powers and to rule the entire country even under the general 
and imperfect laws adopted by them, it goes without saying 
that party rule is having even fuller sway in Russia to-day than 
it had in the days of Tzarism. 



Who are the 

" Counter-Revolutionists" 

in Russia? 

QUITE frequenly in the American press and in conver- 
sation with Americans who have studied Russia for a 
month or two from a hotel window, the opinion is 
voiced that the Bolsheviki are the Simon-pure revolutionists 
of Russia, the vigilant guardians of the true interests of the 
people, and that they are opposed only by those elements who 
strive to turn Russia back to her past and to restore autocracy 
and the privileges which they lost after the Bolshevist coup 
d'etat and rise to power in November, 1917. 

This prejudiced and biased view is quite widespread, and 
it is necessary, in the interests of truth, to combat it. We will 
attempt, therefore, to draw in brief a general outline of the forces 
which are arrayed against the Bolsheviki in Russia. 

The March Revolution of 1917, as stated already, came to 
pass practically without bloodshed, and it captured the heart of 
the world with its charming beauty. With the exception of some 
bureaucrats and a few conscientious monarchists, upholders of 
the old order, there were no malcontents in Russia in the early 
days of the Revolution. In the process of the Revolution, how- 
ever, the Provisional Government found it necessary to respond 
to one general demand of the great masses of the people, and the 
performance of its duty in that direction created a number of 
malcontents. We speak of the disbanding of the police and the 
gendarmes. 

The hatred of the Russian people for the police, and par- 
ticularly the gendarmes, is only too well known. Soon after 
the Revolution insistent demands came from all sides for the 
dispersal of the police and the gendarmes. This demand had to 
be complied with, and they were disbanded; and as all of them 
were ex-soldiers, it was demanded that they be sent to the front. 
This was also conceded. 



38 Who Are the "Counter-Revolutionists" in Russia? 

This last decision, however, was fatal for the Army. In 
consequence of this act there appeared at the front and in the 
rear of the Army the old police and gendarmes who 
were the enemies of the Provisional Government be- 
cause it had deprived them of their former places 
and means of existence. Their attention, naturally, 
was attracted by the group which raised the banner of 
struggle against the Provisional Government in the name of a so- 
called better future ; which promised its followers a new, hitherto 
untried world, and, principally, immediate benefits and wealth; 
a speedy end to the war, bread to the hungry, the factories to 
the workers, the land to the peasants, and all of this at once — 
through confiscation and division. 

These banished police and gendarmes were certainly not at- 
tracted to this program by the higher motives and strivings of 
some of the idealists among the Bolsheviki. To them it held out 
a promise of immediate advantages and, principally, a chance to 
start a fight against the Provisional Government which had de- 
prived them of their former privileges. 

Thus, almost all of the old police and gendarmes joined the 
Bolsheviki and began to work actively with them. This proved 
to be of formidable assistance to the Bolsheviki in the early period 
of their agitation in the Army, both at the front and in the rear. 
Whenever news was received from the front that this or the 
other regiment, under the influence of agitation, had refused to 
obey orders, and that such a decision had been adopted by the 
regimental committee, these reports invariably brought the infor- 
mation that the chairman of such a regimental committee or his 
assistant, or its most active member, was either an old gen- 
darme, a policeman or an ex-member of the Okhrana. And 
this disruptive activity was carried on not by plain soldiers 
only. Privates and officers alike, who had formerly belonged 
to the old police and the gendarmes' corps, took part in it. 

Who led the troops against Kerensky in the first days of 
the November Bolshevist usurpation of power? Colonel Valden, 
the former commander of the Rostov gendarme district. Who 
commanded the soldiers, incited by the Bolsheviki, against the 
headquarters of General Dukhonin, who refused to obey the order 



Who Are the "Counter-Revolutionists" in Russia? 39 

of the Bolsheviki to begin armistice negotiations with the Ger- 
mans ? Lieutenant Schneur, an agent-provocateur of the old Gov- 
ernment, arrested later by the Bolsheviki themselves. 

Who led the army detachments removed by the Bolsheviki 
from the German front, against the Ukraine, which had a genu- 
inely democratic Government at that time and was straining all 
its energies to present a fighting front to the Austro-Hungarians ? 
Colonel Muraviev, a Moscow police captain under the Tzar, 
discharged by the Provisional Government. 

We could go on recounting hundreds of names of old serv- 
ants of the Tzar, true and tried and thoroughly saturated with 
monarchistic tendencies, who went over to the service of the 
Bolsheviki and with whom the latter always cooperated. 

Thus, the group of Bolsheviki which was seeking to "deepen" 
the Revolution found its early supporters among an element far 
away from the Revolution and from Socialism, an element to 
whom the former regime was not merely an ideal one, but a 
profitable one as well. We, therefore, do not hesitate to assert 
that the November upheaval which overturned the revolutionary 
Government, — a Government which made mistakes, but which, 
nevertheless, was full of idealism and faith in the invigorating 
mainsprings of true freedom, — that this upheaval was nothing 
less than a monarchist-Bolshevist counter-revolution. 

We shall now direct our attention to those elements who 
rose against the Bolshevist domination and who enlisted in the 
front ranks of the struggle. 

Who stood at the head of those who revolted against the 
usurpers? In Petgrograd it was the new City Council composed 
largely of Socialists and led by Socialists-Revolutionists. This 
Council, with the veteran Socialist-Revolutionist, Schreider, at 
its head, came out in defense of Free Russia in the fight for the 
Constituent Assembly. In Moscow it was also the Socialist City 
Council, with the veteran Socialists, Minor, Rudnev, and others, 
that opened the struggle against the usurpers. 

The same happened everywhere. 

The Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviet 
of Workmen's Deputies, which protested against the ousting of 
the Provisional Government, was ordered disbanded. A similar 



40 11 ho Are the "'Counter-Revolutionists''' in Russia? 

fate overtook the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian 
Soviet of Peasants' Delegates after it joined the fight for the 
Constituent Assembly through the time-honored revolutionary 
method of secret congresses and assemblies. This titanic struggle 
of the Russian peasantry against the new aggressors, who have 
taken the place of the old Tzarist oppressors, is told graphically 
by the Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Peas- 
ants' Congress, I. Rakitnikova, in her report to the Bureau of 
the Workers' Internationale, entitled, "How the Russian Peasants 
Fought for the Constituent Assembly." This very interesting 
report proves by facts that the Russian peasantry has been op- 
posed to the Bolsheviki from the very outset and that it only 
gave way to the sheer physical force lodged in the hands of 
the Bolsheviki. The Russian peasantry has continued incessantly 
to struggle against them and every issue of the Bolshevist papers 
(others were soon suppressed within the confines of Great Rus- 
sia under their domination) has been full of news of peasant 
uprisings which aim at the overthrowal of the Bolshevist rule. 

Workers in numerous factories are likewise continually adopt- 
ing resolutions against the Bolshevist rule and their system of 
temporary administration, and this restlessness indicates that 
the discontent with the Bolsheviki is growing just as strong 
among the workers, in the ranks of the proletariat in the name of 
which the Bolsheviki have declared a dictatorship and in whose 
name they are oppressing the people. Since last summer they 
have kept in jail an entire convention of workers' representatives 
of Moscow, among whom there are such prominent revolutionists 
as L. Freifeld (an old member of the "Narodnaya Volia" of the 
eighties), A. Troyanovsky (a Social-Democrat and ex-Bolslu- 
vik), and many others. 

Who of the old revolutionists who survived all the horrors 
of the autocracy of the Tzar and the rule of the gendarmes is 
to be found in the ranks of the Bolsheviki? Not Baboushka 
(Breshkovskaya), nor Tchaikovsky, nor Herman Lopatin, nor 
Lazarev ; not the Central Committee of the Party of Social-Revo- 
lutionists, even the left wing of which swung away from the 
Bolsheviki after the shame of Mn-st-Litovsk ; not the Menshe- 
viki (Social-Democrats) ; not the IWindists or any others. You 



Who Are the "Counter-Revolutionists" in Russia? 41 

don't find among them the old anarchist, Kropotkin, — in short, 
hardly anyone who before March, 1917, participated in the Revo- 
lutionary Movement. You can't find there anyone who is not 
allured by pretty phrases not based in fact, and the activities of 
the Bolsheviki, who are ready to work hand in hand with anyone 
who professes lip-service to their principles. What if these stray 
followers are discrediting the professions of those Bolsheviki 
who still continue to have faith in their own cause, — they worry 
little about it! They are grist to their mills and that is all they 
require. They have never inquired about the moral qualifications 
of their partisans and they do not inquire about it now. 

Americans often ask the question: How can it be ex- 
plained that the Bolsheviki hold power for almost a year 
and a half? Does not this prove that they are supported by the 
majority of the people? 

For us, Russians, the reply to this question is very simple. 
The Tzars held power for centuries. Is that proof that their 
rule was supported by the will of the majority of the people 
and that it satisfied the wants of the people? Of course, not. 
They held power by the rule of blood and iron and did not rest 
at all upon the sympathies of the great masses of the people. 
The Bolsheviki are retaining their power to-day by the same 
identical means. And if, in the early period, there were some who 
had honest delusions about the introduction of a paradise on 
earth by means of Bolshevism, these delusions have been wiped 
out by this time. There is nothing but stark, crude force staring 
them in the face, and to-day all the revolutionary elements are 
against the Bolshevist government and are making ready to fight 
it, or are already engaged in the struggle against these new oppres- 
sors of Russia who are applying in practice the principles of the 
old gendarme rule. 

Russia of the Tzarist times was governed by blue gendarmes. 
Great Russia of to-day is ruled by red gendarmes. The distinc- 
tion is only in color, and perhaps somewhat in methods. The 
methods of the red gendarmes are more ruthless and cruel than 
those of the old, blue gendarmes. 

But the freedom-loving citizens of Russia and the citizens 
who struggled against Tzarism are to-day struggling against the 



42 Who Are the "Counter -Revolutionists" in Russia? 

Bolsheviki in the name of Liberty and the People's rule, and, 
of course, their efforts will be crowned with success. For, while 
strivings for freedom may be deterred by bayonets, they can- 
not be stayed or suppressed, even by the use of hired Chinese 
bayonets, no matter how plentiful ! 

Russian revolutionists have known how to fight and overcome 
their oppressors. These Russian revolutionists, the true fighters 
for the liberties of the people, are to-day being called by some 
"counter-revolutionists." But it must be remembered that this 
epithet is being applied to them only by the Bolsheviki, the self- 
same people who, in November, 1917, in cooperation with the 
old agents of the Okhrana, brought about their monarchist-Bol- 
shevist counter-revolution. 



The Fundamental Causes 

of the Failure of 
The Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 

AS an adequate reply to the query, why the Bolshevist- 
Soviet rule has failed, I quote here from an article I 
wrote last September in a Russian weekly appearing in 
New York. This article was called "Lenine Is Dead" (Narod- 
naya Gazeta, Sept. 12, '18), and was written soon after the 
attempted assassination of Lenine : 

"Lenine is dead — Lenine is still alive — such news is con- 
stantly appearing in the columns of the press these days. 
Doubtless a good deal of the information concerning Russia 
is being made of whole cloth by enterprising correspondents 
who are ready to wire across all sorts of sensational rumors, 
particularly when such information suits the tastes and an- 
ticipations of the class of readers to whom their organ is 
catering. 

When I took as my title for this article the Stockholm dis- 
patch which appeared in the New York World last Sunday, it 
was not because I attached any particular significance to that 
piece of news, which read as follows : 'Travelers who have 
reached Harapanda from Moscow insist, contrary to official 
Bolshevist information, that Premier Lenine is dead.' It may be 
that this information is correct, and, again, it may be false. I 
am not thinking of physical death when I maintain that Lenine 
is dead. 

The moral death of Lenine, however, is an incontroverti- 
ble fact. Only comparatively not so long ago many people, 
including myself, sincerely regarded Lenine as a fanatic, a 
bigot, who would not hesitate to sacrifice himself for his ideas. 
At present, however, the number of such simpletons is growing 
less and less. 

Lenine's policies, from the day he and his crew succeeded 
in usurping power by means of alluring promises and in the name 
of the interests of the international proletariat, follow two courses. 
One is the waging of a war against the revolutionary people of 
Russia who are rising against the usurpers that have coated a 



44 Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 

reactionary cause with revolutionary phrases ; the other is to 
oppose Russia's Allies who have come to assist her against the 
Junkers of Germany, who are still violating our Motherland, not 
at all in the interests of the International proletariat. 

I will treat of both these courses of action later, but mean- 
while I will permit myself a brief diversion in connection with 
one very significant fact. When in October, 1917, the Petrograd 
Bolshevist Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies con- 
ducted an open agitation in favor of the planned coup, it was an 
open secret that the engineers of this uprising calculated to 
simultaneously provoke a revolution in Germany and to cause 
thereby a termination of the world-wide slaughter. A confer- 
ence for this purpose was arranged at Stockholm, between the 
Left Social-Democrats of Germany and the Bolsheviki, who 
were at that time parading as the Left Wing of the Russian Social- 
Democratic Labor Party and were winning adherents under that 
banner. At this conference the representatives of the German 
Social-Democratic Left put to the Bolsheviki in a concise and 
definite manner the following question : 

'Do you count, in organizing the overturn, upon us, too, and 
do you expect to be able to provoke a revolution in Germany as 
well?' 

'Yes,' was the modest reply of the Bolsheviki. 

'In that case, don't go ahead with your revolt, because so 
long as Germany is in a state of war and has to defend herself 
against almost the entire world, we will not organize a revolution, 
and, consequently, Germany will not support you at present.' 

This was the honest warning given by the Germans of the 
Left to our so-called Left. Nevertheless, disregarding this clear 
and faithful statement, our 'Lefts' engineered the overturn and 
usurped power almost on the eve of the opening of the Constituent 
Assembly by stealthy promises of a speedy peace to the soldiers 
and similar allurements to the other elements of the population, 
to capture their good will and sanction. 

When the November 'revolution' took place, it was the 
'Leipzig Volkszeitung,' the organ of the Independent Socialists 
of Germany, that condemned this overturn and even branded 
its participants as traitors to the cause- of the international 



Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 45 



proletariat. The "Vowaerts," the organ of the Schneideman- 
nists, on the other hand, praised it. That alone was sufficient 
to engender doubts as to the revolutionary sincerity of Lenine, 
who had sanctioned an act so detrimental to the true interests 
of the peoples of Russia, as well as to the interests of the 
world-wide proletariat. Lenine knew too well that a revolu- 
tion on a universal scale was quite impossible at that time. 

The consequences surpassed the worst anticipations. Those 
who had posed as the defenders of the people became the violators 
of their interests. Hatred became the cornerstone of Lenine's 
policies and the contemporary rulers of certain parts of Russia 
are governing only by the fanning and inciting of hate. Little 
wonder, therefore, that they cannot seriously concern themselves 
with constructive work and are perforce devoting themselves to 
destruction, having made of it a cause and an ideal. 

In spite of the alluring promises which strongly impressed 
the imagination of the people before the November coup d'etat, 
soon after the small Bolshevist party had captured the power, 
this very people assumed a critical and expectant position awaiting 
the results of the forthcoming experiments. Fearing the results 
of this change of attitude, Lenine and his followers immediately 
launched a regime of terror surpassing anything of its kind 
practiced by the Government of the Tzars. 

The revolutionary people were thereupon compelled to 
adopt the same measures in the struggle against the November 
aggressors that they had used against the servants of the Tzar, 
when Lenine and the Leninists were still revolutionists. A series 
of terrorist acts directed against members of the so-called Gov- 
ernment followed, the most important of which was the attempt 
on Lenine by the revolutionist, Dora Kaplan. A number of up- 
risings in numerous and widely scattered localities proved beyond 
doubt that the cup of the people's patience was full and that the 
end of Leninism was in sight. When we consider, in addition, 
that Lenine and his servitors, particularly his chairman of the 
Moscow 'Extraordinary Commission to Combat the Counter- 
Revolution, ' Peters, are wreaking vengeance on persons abso- 
lutely unconnected with any terrorist attempts, and are detaining 
and shooting hundreds of people as hostages, it becomes clear 



46 Causes of the Failure of tlie Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 

to us why the moment of the final crumbling of their moral author- 
ity has come and why it can now only be maintained by a system 
of the most cruel terror. 

There are other signs, too. It is well known that the Ger- 
man Junkers are forcibly occupying more and more of Russian 
territory, and Lenine is doing nothing to halt this German in- 
vasion. Once in a while Tchitcherin writes a note to Berlin, 
which is not even accorded the courtesy of an answer. But no 
sooner did the Entente, the friends and Allies of the Russian 
people, who have never recognized the Brest-Litovsk shame, come 
to our assistance, than Lenine and his collaborators, with signal 
effrontery, moved against them, i. e., against the Russian people, 
their hired Bolshevist troops for physical opposition to the "inter- 
vention" of our Allies, who have definitely and unequivocally 
stated that their aims were far removed from any annexationist 
designs or the encroachment upon Russia's sovereign rights as 
a State. 

Lenine and his followers have even descended to the in- 
famy of attacking the representatives of foreign powers within 
Russia, violating their ex-territorial rights under the pretense 
of the shameful and worn-out excuse of searching for "counter- 
revolutionists," — an act which was denounced by our Allies as 
barbarous, practiced only in semi-civilized States in the distant 
past. The result is that if there were any persons abroad, in 
Europe and America, who have heretofore given occasional 
thought to the proposition of recognizing the Lenine regime 
as the Government of Russia, such thought has now been 
everywhere abandoned forever. 

Thus the moral significance of Lenine has vanished and 
he is morally dead. To-day, Lenine and his closest 
fellow-champions are so badly compromised, that when 
they are ultimately dethroned by the revolutionary people of 
Russia, they will have neither place nor refuge for themselves, 
and will wander over the ways and byways of the world with 
the brand of Cain on them. Berlin will not receive them, for 
Berlin only has use for them while they are within Russia. 



Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 47 

Lenine is dead. He may be a 'living corpse' for a time, 
but still a corpse. In his death-agony he may yet cause enough 
misery to our precious Motherland and bring disrepute upon the 
ideals of Socialism and the Revolution, — perhaps, even at a more 
intensified tempo than heretofore. These, however, will be the 
last sacrifices to Leninism that our land will be called upon to 
make. It will soon be swept away, and only a hideous memory 
will remain of these days when under the cloak of popular happi- 
ness the will of the people and their lives were brutally violated/' 

This was written by me ten months ago, and I readily sub- 
scribe to all of it to-day. It may appear somewhat premature to 
speak of the causes of the failure of the Bolshevist-Soviet rule 
when they are still holding out on almost all the internal fronts 
and are even scoring gains here and there, extending their influ- 
ence to such parts of Russia as have not heretofore been under 
their rule, such as the Ukraine. But this apparent success signi- 
fies actually nothing. This ceaseless state of warfare in which 
the Bolsheviki have kept and are keeping Russia since the day 
they usurped power, under the mask of struggling for peace, is 
in itself conclusive proof that their hopes are crushed. They 
cannot pass over to a state of peace, as they have nothing to 
offer the people in peace times. The premises of their daily 
activities are based on one cardinal principle : the inciting of 
hate and malice ; hate for the bourgeoise ; malice to the intel- 
lectual workers and hatred for the "counter-revolutionists," 
under which classification they place all the true and tried 
friends of the people. Such promises are not conducive to 
constructive work, but tend to demolish life. One cannot 
create anything upon malice and blind hatred. 

In this lies the key to the miscarriages and failures of the 
Bolsheviki. If they are still supported by a small group of 
young enthusiasts who are ready to pay with their lives for their 
rule, and, principally, by a force of armed hirelings and starving 
men who have to join the Red Army in order to be able to seek 
bread in other parts of Russia, the circumstances attending the 
continuation of their rule point out even more strikingly the 
contradiction between their promise of peace to the entire world 



48 Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 

and the sequel to their activities which has brought war, war 
without end all over Europe. 

They are expending all their efforts to provoke in every 
other country the same social phenomena that landed them in 
the seat of power, and spare neither energy nor national resources 
to create circumstances suitable for Bolshevist revolutions in other 
lands. It is safe to assume that they will fail. The bloody experi- 
ment upon Russia, the total destruction and ruination of life, 
the devouring and extermination of all national stores, is a lesson 
dearly paid for by the Russian people and cannot pass unnoticed 
by their neighbors. We thus observe that in Germany, Austria, 
Hungary and other places where the Bolsheviki have succeeded in 
causing analoguous, so-called communist outbreaks, these attempts 
have suffered defeat, as if the peoples of the world already under- 
stand by sheer intuition, if not by mental calculation, that the 
Russian experiment in "communism" has led only to the extermi- 
nation of life and the destruction of all culture created by cen- 
turies of labor and effort. 

The Bolsheviki have failed to excite a world-wide revolu- 
tion, the star to which they hitched their chariot, but, instead, 
have demonstrated the full glory of their social "laboratory" 
work. As for Russia, the land that is groaning for more than 
one and a half years under the heel of the Bolsheviki, a yoke 
which is implicitly being styled a "dictatorship of the pro- 
letariat," — there, in Bolshevisia, life has temporarily just come 
to a standstill and the people are consuming to the last crumb 
and shred all that has been accumulated for ages, without pro- 
ducing anything worth while. Therein, of course, is the 
reason for the wreck of the plans of those Bolsheviki who 
in November, 1917, overthrew the Provisional Government in 
the sincere belief that they were accomplishing something 
useful for the people. (I do not doubt that there were such 
among them, though very few and far between.) 

The recognition of the fact that their plans have gone woe- 
fully awry is, no doubt, penetrating the minds and souls of the 
Bolsheviki themselves. We are constantly learning of late, even 
through the official Bolshevist press, that Lenine, for instance, 



Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 49 

and some of their other leaders, are making departures towards 
reconciliation and concessions. They, who originally proclaimed 
the doctrine of the extermination and suppression of the bour- 
geoisie and the intellectuals, are now, after having destroyed the 
entire machinery of production and exchange, attempting to estab- 
lish relations and trading connection with representatives of the 
foreign bourgeoisie, and in their first creative steps intend to 
receive the support of their arch-enemies. All this, mind you, 
after the intellectual forces and the bourgeoisie of entire Russia 
were pronounced enemies of the people by these very men, 
and as such were assaulted, crushed and exterminated. 

True, at present the Bolsheviki are adopting a policy of 
conciliation even towards the Russian bourgeoisie and are begin- 
ning to make large concessions to them. Only upon one cardinal 
point the Bolsheviki are, as yet, as unyielding as before — on the 
summoning of a Constituent Assembly, the fighting issue between 
them and all those to whom the interests of the people are dear 
and who see the salvation and the happiness of Russia and its 
many peoples in the unhampered expression of the will of the 
people, — in a freely elected Constituent Assembly. The Bol- 
sheviki are fearful of the verdict of the people and are still de- 
termined to impose upon them their own will. 

Again, it is well to recall that they signalled their entrance 
into power by a vociferous and solemn refusal to pay Russia's 
debts. Now, when they see their breakdown close ahead of them, 
they have loudly, just as loudly as when they bombastically repu- 
diated the national obligations, changed their front and said: 
"We will pay up all the old obligations, only recognize us 
as the Government of Russia !" A more cynical reversal of 
mind can hardly be imagined and it can only be explained by 
their utter perplexity before the inevitable wreck. 

What are then, in the final analysis, the fundamental causes 
of the collapse of the Soviet-Bolshevist experiment? 

In making a brief reply to this question I will, of course, 
have in mind only such Bolsheviki, who have honestly believed 
that they were called upon to recreate life and to confer happi- 
ness upon the toiling masses and not those of their ilk who have 



50 Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 

joined them out of mercenary motives and have occupied them- 
selves from the very start with the gratification of their personal 
interests and ambitions based upon the "principle" of "Grab, 
while grabbing is good !" 

It is my opinion that the underlying cause of their failure 
consists in the fact that the Bolsheviki have failed to comprehend 
the essence of Socialism, that have flattened it out to a maximum 
degree and have reduced it in its entirety to the level of eco- 
nomics, in complete forgetfulness of the truth that life is complex 
and cannot be exclusively ramified by economic relations, that 
"man lives not on bread alone." They have cast aside the entire 
spiritual and moral side of life as a worthless rag. 

Again, having been nurtured for years in the conceptions 
and precepts of the class struggle, in the ideas of fight and only 
fight as a means of breaking down the old regime, they, the 
Bolsheviki, have left out of sight the basic principle that destruc- 
tion is not everything in life, and that aside from destroying the 
old it is necessary to create the new. And the ability for cre- 
ation lies not in class hatred, but in the feelings of solidarity 
and mutual cooperation. Hatred is a weapon of destruction, 
and as such it is at times expedient to use it for political pur- 
poses, but the creative source of life is love, and those who 
have killed the element of love in their hearts and minds cannot 
pretend to the role of creators of new life, no matter how sin- 
cerely they may believe in their creative mission. This lack of 
the creative force of love in the ranks of the active Bolsheviki 
is the basic cause of the failure of their enterprise. 

Aside from that, having spent all their lives in the abstract 
atmosphere of the class struggle, the Bolsheviki could not see 
the forest for the trees, and failed to notice the entire people for 
the sake of a class. In striving to rebuild life they have ap- 
pealed only to a class and not to the entire people with their 
manysided and variegated interests. Unfortunately, the class to 
whom they have appealed represents only a minority everywhere 
in the world, and a very small minority in Russia, and even this 
minority was not entirely and consciously on the side of the 
i'»< "1-lieviki. 



Causes of the Failure of the Soviet-Bolshevist Rule 51 

They are ready to make every concession except the convoca- 
tion of a Constituent Assembly. The very idea of a Constituent 
Assembly is an emphatic denial of their tendency to impose by 
force the will of an insignificant minority upon the entire people. 
But no matter how good the motives and desires of those who 
wish to impose a dictatorship upon the people, their efforts must 
of necessity fail, for even in Russia the consciousness is growing 
that the people themselves are to be the masters of their own 
destiny, so, irrespective of the altruistic intention of a minority 
which wants to fasten its doctrines upon an unwilling people, it 
must result in collapse. 

The will of the people cannot be violated by force. The 
Bolsheviki do not comprehend this, and it has become the 
principal cause of their undoing. 

New York, 
May 8, 1919. 



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